People poured into the district from all quarters, and the midday train brought about 500 more from Dunedin and various stations along the line.
This means that over 1000 people have arrived in Lawrence by rail since Saturday, and with the addition of those who have come in from the surrounding districts, there must have been fully 2000 people in Lawrence today to participate in this historical event, and it is quote safe to say that to all who had the privilege of being present the day will prove a memorable one.
At 8 o'clock this morning the various bells in the town rang out a glad welcome to the pioneer miners. Thus the opening of Jubilee Week was declared, and the events that followed today must be considered as in every way in keeping with the significance and importance of the occasion.
In short, the people of Lawrence have risen nobly to the occasion, and today's events must go down in history side by side with the great discovery of gold in Gabriels Gully in 1861.
This afternoon the programme embraced a great procession of old miners and representations of the incidents and figures in the stirring time of 1861. Then followed the extending of a formal welcome to the pioneers and speeches by the Hon.
Roderick McKenzie (Minister of Mines), mayors of Lawrence and Dunedin, members of Parliament, and others.
The whole of the proceedings went off without the slightest hitch, and the general management reflected the greatest credit on the committee of towns people who had the carrying out the celebrations in hand.
• The Press reports a a party of returning deer-stalkers from the wilds of Otago found a large buck stag hung up to the bush by one of its antlers.
Judging from the surrounding indications it had been there several days, and in its efforts to free itself. had twisted the bush into thick plaits. The party secured a photograph of the animal, and then startled him. With a terrific jump he broke the antler and bounded away .
Shortly after the party found another stag situated in the same way, but he was dead, and had probably been so for 10 days. It is not an uncommon experience for deer-stalking parties to find the skeletons of two stags with their antlers locked together, caused through fighting, but it is stated to be unique to find two deer hung up, both on the same day.
• The leper patients at Quail Island are reported to be as comfortable and happy as can be expected in their isolation, but they find the time hanging heavily on their hands during the long winter nights. The caretaker at the island has a gramophone and a number of records, with which he gives recitals, which are greatly enjoyed by the patients.
As the nights are now very cold and darkness sets in early, the patients have to fall back on their own resources for amusement during the evenings, and they have expressed a wish to have a gramophone to be kept in one of their huts, and to be operated by themselves.
The gramophone, which was presented by a gentleman about two or three years ago, has been kept by the caretaker, as, if it were in the patients' care, it could not be taken away for repairs in the event of its getting out of order.
- ODT, 23.5.1911
